Mario Andretti, who also raced against Mr. Bell of in the early 1980s, said some of the most intimidating aspects of the track are the places where a car reaches "terminal speed" while going downhill and into a hairpin turn.

We were caught by surprise on a few occasions, ordering hundreds of copies for someone such as Nasser Hussain when only a trickle turned up yet being dumbstruck by the hordes who turned up for Mario Andretti, a Saturday morning petrol head convention that resembled a Top Gear studio audience.